


THE GAY AVENGER

by skatzaa



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: F/F, M/M, POV Outsider, Time Skips, nightclubs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 04:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7742989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatzaa/pseuds/skatzaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a man lurking in the nightclubs of Brooklyn, swooping in whenever the straight dudes strike. Someone dubs him “the Gay Avenger,” and the name sort of sticks.</p><p>(Well, he's bisexual, but that was a bit of a mouthful.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	THE GAY AVENGER

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning: I wasn’t sure how to tag this, but there are brief scenes of unwanted grinding between strangers in this fic. Proceed with caution if that bothers you.**
> 
>  
> 
> For M, who once saved me when a guy wouldn’t stop grinding against me at prom, and for Tim, after whom this Tim was named. What a legacy.
> 
> Not betaed, so make of it what you will. Based on a facebook photo of a screenshot of a tumblr post.

It’s 2015, gay marriage is legal in the US, and Erin and her girlfriend of four years, Lina, are out celebrating. It’s been legal in New York since 2011, but there’s something more tangible about the Supreme Court ruling in their favor.

Lina is already mostly on her way to being shitfaced, because she’s never been able to hold her liquor, so Erin leaves her with some friends in a corner booth. She grabs her friend’s hand and hauls him out onto the dance floor; Tim is a terrible dancer with absolutely no sense of rhythm, so they end up laughing more than anything else. Erin feels giddy with possibilities and alcohol, high on the pounding bass and flashing lights of the club. Tim twirls her in a circle, and that’s when she catches sight of him.

The guy has to be well over six feet tall, and his shoulder looks massive in his tight t-shirt. He’s at the back of the club where the lights are dim, and she can’t quite make out his face.

Tim twirls her again, and by the time Erin finds the guy once more, he’s prowling along the edge of the dance floor. She still can’t see his face. The back of her neck prickles as she watches him walk—he has the smooth movement of a man who’s capable of almost anything.

Erin doesn’t realize she’s stopped dancing until Tim leans down and asks, “Everything okay?”

She shrugs, because she doesn’t want to take her eyes off this guy in case he really does turn out to be a creep.

It isn’t until she hears Tim shout “ _Hey!_ ” that Erin realizes something else is going on.

A guy is grinding against a girl who obviously isn’t interested. She’s trying to shove him off, but he’s too big for her to move.

Erin feels her anger flair up. She hates when straight guys do this, showing up at a gay club and expecting every woman there is actually somehow straight.

She steps forward, even though she’s smaller than either of them, because she has to do _something_.

That’s when the prowling guy sweeps in.

He pulls the guy off the girl easily and presses their hips together, grinding on him with less rhythm than even Tim has.

The music’s too loud to hear what either of them say, but the straight guy pushes the other one off and hauls ass out of the club.

Up close, Erin can see the bisexual flag on the guy’s shirt and the shock of blond hair falling onto his forehead.

He tilts his head toward the girl and asks something. He dwarfs her in height and stature, but she smiles up at him and nods.

The guy moves off the dance floor and continues his circle around the club. Erin turns back to Tim, who has an incredulous look on his face.

*

Erin doesn’t forget about him, and anytime Lina wants to go out she suggests the same club, because she wants to figure out if the guy does that regularly or not.

She sees him a few more times in the following year, and once she points him out to Lina, they like to spend time imagining what he does for a living, what his name is, how he started doing this. He becomes something of a legend at that club and a few others in the area.

He’s always wearing some variation of the bisexual flag, and Erin feels a strange sense of pride every time she sees him swoop in to save someone.

Once, he brings along a friend, a tall, dark skinned man that even Erin, who’s never been attracted to a man in her life, can admit is handsome. He’s straight—his shirt has a tiny black and white striped square pin on the breast pocket—and he doesn’t dance with anyone like his friend does, but spends extra time with each girl afterward to make sure they’re alright. He has a kind smile that makes Erin immediately want to be friends with him.

He only comes the one time, but the other guy is still around. Sometimes Erin wonders how long he’ll keep doing this for.

*

Lina proposes a month before their sixth anniversary, which is when Erin was planning on proposing.

They go out with friends to the usual club to celebrate.

“Still can’t believe you beat me to it,” Erin grumbles as Lina tucks her into a booth next to Tim, who’s with his new partner, Cam. Lina just smiles and kisses her temple before going to the bar to get them drinks.

Erin glances down at the thin silver ring on her finger, and despite her complaints, she’s ecstatic. And a little smug, because Lina’s finger sports almost the same exact ring.

When she looks up, she sees the prowling guy. She points him out to Tim.

He laughs and turns to Cam. “There’s the Gay Avenger I was telling you about!”

Erin raises her eyebrows and asks, “Gay Avenger?”

“Yeah, that’s what people are calling him,” Tim says and gestures, “I mean, look at his physique! He could be Captain America’s twin.”

She has to admit that he has a point. She’s pretty sure the guy’s shoulders have only gotten broader in the past two years.

Lina’s almost back with their drinks when Erin sees the second guy.

He’s not anywhere near the “Gay Avenger,” instead leaning against a wall off to one side, away from the crowd of people on the dance floor. He looks unsure, but there’s something about his posture that reminds Erin of the smooth way the “Gay Avenger” walks whenever he’s searching for someone to defend.

Then Erin finds the “Gay Avenger” through the crowd and sees him looking at the other guy, who ducks his face out of sight.

Erin looks back and quietly points him out to Lina, who’s practically sitting in her lap. She runs her fingers through Lina’s curls as they study the new guy.

He’s broad, but maybe not as tall as the “Gay Avenger” (Erin feels vaguely ridiculous both for calling him that and for the mental air quotes that she uses every time she thinks it, but hey, at least it’s sort of a name), with long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.

Lina laughs and points out that he has the same hairstyle as Erin. She pinches Lina’s side in retaliation.

There’s something sort of off about him, but Erin figures that if he’s with the “Gay Avenger” he can’t be that bad.

*

Erin sees the dark haired man three more times before she realizes he always wears long sleeves and a battered pair of motorcycle gloves, and that he’s not actually _with_ the Gay Avenger but sort of shadowing him.

He always looks vaguely uncomfortable, and while he doesn’t ever let the Gay Avenger see him, he never leaves before the other man does. He glares every time he catches Erin staring, which is more than a little awkward and terrifying.

It’s Erin’s bachelorette party—Lina’s is tomorrow night, because Cam insisted it’s more fun that way—and they’re at the club for a lack of desire to go anywhere else. The term bachelorette is used loosely, of course, what with Tim and Cam and some of the others being there, but they’re having a blast nonetheless.

Tim drags her out onto the dance floor and they dance maniacally like they did nearly three years ago, though Erin tries not to dislodge the face tiara Cam shoved on her head earlier.

Tim disappears after a while, probably to get a drink, but Erin doesn’t follow. She keeps dancing by herself, giddy with the idea that in three days, she’ll be married to Lina, finally.

Someone’s fingers grab her hips and Erin giggles half-heartedly, thinking it’s Cam or Jessie playing a joke.

Erin twists to tell them off, and comes face-to-chest with a stranger. Her stomach clenches.

“I’m not interested!” She shouts. She tries to pull his fingers off but he just tightens his grip and leers at her.

“I have a fiancée,” she tries.

That’s when he starts to grind against her.

Erin tries not to panic, but this guy is huge and she’s never been particularly strong. She pulls at his fingers again, harder this time, and looks around for any of her friends, or even the Gay Avenger. The club is too dark and the dance floor too crowded for her to see anything.

She digs her fingernails into his skin and is about to stomp on his foot with her high heel or elbow him in the gut or _something_ when someone grasps her shoulder gently. Suddenly the guy is no longer touching her, and Erin spins around to see who pulled him off.

It’s the Gay Avenger’s shadow, in a long sleeve like always, his hair pulled into a low, messy bun.

If the Gay Avenger has absolutely no sense of rhythm, his shadow is the exact opposite. He’s perfectly in time with the pulsing bassline, his body moving sinuously against the guy who was grinding on her.

Predictably, the guy shoves him off, yelling, “What the _fuck_?!”

The Gay Avenger’s friend snarls, “How does it feel, asshole?”

The guy tears off the dance floor.

Erin’s savior turns to her, still looking rather murderous, but since she’s pretty sure it’s not directed at her, she isn’t too worried.

“Are you alright?” he asks, loud enough to be heard over the music but not shouting. Erin nods and wishes she was home with Lina, enjoying a quiet night in before the craziness of the wedding really kicks in. “Where’s your girlfriend?”

Erin would be touched he remembered, even noticed, but she’s a little too shaken up still. “At home,” she says. “It’s supposed to be my bachelorette party tonight.”

Someone else appears then, and when she looks up she sees it’s the Gay Avenger. He doesn’t even glance at her, but Erin doesn’t really mind, because he’s doing his best to make literal heart eyes toward the guy who saved her instead.

“Bucky,” he says.

“Steve,” Apparently-Bucky responds, rubbing the back of his neck and not meeting Apparently-Steve’s gaze.

Steve stares at Bucky who stares at his feet, and Erin tries not to freak out over the fact that, now that she can see his face up close, it’s obvious the Gay Avenger is actually, you know, an Avenger. It would explain the shoulders, at least.

Steve finally seems to be able to tear his eyes from Bucky and turns to her, concern clear on his face. He asks, “Are you alright, ma’am?”

Confronted with the full force of Steve’s earnestness, it’s all Erin can do not to blush like a school girl. Bucky seems to know what she’s thinking, because once Erin nods again he claps Steve on the arm and says, “I think it’s time we talk, pal.”

Steve is immediately distracted, turning his earnestness on Bucky, and Erin smiles her thanks before slipping away to go find Tim or Cam. She’s really wants to go home.

*

Lina doesn’t fully believe her that night when she relays the story, but Erin doesn’t mind, because she can hardly believe it herself.

*

The last time she sees Bucky and Steve, it’s the night before Erin and Lina are set to move to Virginia for Lina’s new job. It’s been six months since the last time they went to the club, because after Erin’s bachelorette party, neither were looking forward to the possibility of a repeat performance.

Bucky and Steve are together at one edge of the dance floor, moving back and forth without any real purpose and looking sort of foolish, but still smiling at each other.

Steve is scanning the crowd, and after a minute he disappears between the people, presumably to save someone. Bucky reaches out and draws in a petite redhead that Erin would have drooled over, once upon a time. She smirks and says something to Bucky, who throws his head back and laughs.

Erin wonders if they know each other. She hopes so; Bucky seems like he deserves lots of people who love him.

They’re beautiful together, both obviously great dancers, unlike Steve. It takes a while for him to come back, but when he does Bucky and the redhead pull in him to make a tiny circle with their bodies.

Erin catches a glimpse of pink, yellow, and blue on Bucky’s chest—the pansexual flag?—when he turns and winks in her direction. She smiles back, inexplicably proud of two strangers she’ll probably never see again.

Then Lina tugs her hand and starts ranting about moving expenses, expecting Erin to back her up. She turns to the conversation gladly, a feeling of contentment settling deep in her chest, even if her friends are quick to start making fun of her because she’s _nearly thirty, dear god!_

Erin sneaks one more look at the trio on the dance floor, who look just as happy as she feels.

She has the feeling that everything’s going to work out just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun drinking game: take a shot every time I use the word “guy” (don’t do it, you’ll probably die).
> 
> The last scene could also possibly imply Nat/Bucky/Steve, but you can interpret that however you'd like.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it, comments and kudos are appreciated! ^-^
> 
> Read On,  
> Skats


End file.
